Many individuals travel with a portable computing device, such as a laptop computer, a palmtop computer, or a personal digital assistant (PDA). These individuals may desire particular services when traveling. Services of interest to travelers include, for example, a printer in a hotel room or other location that is accessible to an individual when traveling. A printer in a hotel room allows the individual to print documents quickly and confidentially in their own room. The availability of such printing services may cause an individual to select one facility over another.
Knowledge of such services prior to arrival at the facility may simplify the individual's travel plans. For example, if the hotel selected by the individual offers a printer in the reserved hotel room, it is not necessary for the individual to carry a portable printer. Also, the individual can wait to print documents at the hotel rather than trying to print documents before leaving their office.
In a hotel or other facility with multiple printers, it is important to ensure that an individual's print job prints to the proper printer. Sending a print job to the correct printer is necessary to prevent confidential or proprietary information from being viewed by an unauthorized individual. Also, if the facility charges an additional fee for printing, it is important that the print job be charged to the proper individual. Thus, an individual should be prevented from intentionally or inadvertently printing their print job to a printer in a different hotel room or in a different part of the hotel (such as a conference room or the front desk) without prior authorization by the hotel.
One approach to controlling printer access uses a password system to control access to network facilities by a particular individual. For example, when the individual checks-in to a hotel, the hotel issues a username and associated password to the individual. This username allows the individual to access certain hotel network services, as determined by the hotel. However, this approach requires that the individual configure their laptop computer (or other portable computing device) to communicate with the hotel's network. Additionally, the hotel must constantly configure their network server each time an individual checks-in to the hotel and each time an individual checks-out of the hotel. This constant issuing and terminating of individual network accounts can be tedious, time-consuming, and expensive.
The invention described herein addresses these problems by allowing an individual to print a document or other item using a particular printer, such as a printer in the individual's hotel room.